Pulp Use Fan Videos To Re-learn Their Own Songs

Sometimes the right way to ease yourself back into a job is to watch someone else do it first, especially if they don’t do it terrifically well. Always a confidence boost, that.

And of course, if you’re a band like Pulp, who were always tremendously aware of everything going on around them, a neat way to assert your wily presence again is to offer a friendly public handshake to all of the people who’ve kept your music alive in the years since you last played a gig.

And that’s what the actual Pulp have done. Having reformed for some summer festival gigs, they’ve launched a competition on their new website to find the fans’ favorite cover version of one of their songs. And in order to set the ball rolling, they’ve been out hunting for particularly good (or terrible) examples.

Here’s one we picked at random:

As an opening statement on their website, over a blanket of YouTube stills, the band said: “During the process of learning to play the old songs again we have been consulting the versions posted by various persons on the internet. Very educational! So we thought we’d share some of our favourites with you”.

“View them online at pulppeople.com and vote for YOUR favourites – or upload your own renditions if you think you could do better. Please get involved. It will be fun. We’re offering a musical prize to the winner (if we can find them out in cyberspace).”

That’s right, your good cover version of their “Bad Cover Version” could get you…something. A signed kazoo, probably. Can you imagine?

Fraser McAlpine

Fraser has been writing and broadcasting about music and popular culture for over 15 years, first at the Top of the Pops website, and most recently for the NME, Guardian and MSN. He also wrote BBC Radio 1's Chart Blog and reviews albums for BBC Radio 2.
He is Anglophenia's current resident Brit, blogging about British slang and running around the Mall taking snaps of the crowd at the Royal Wedding, as well as reigniting a childhood passion for classic Doctor Who and cramming as much music in as he can manage.
Fraser invites you to join him on Twitter: @csi_popmusic